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Story:Conquest/Korem
Korem Taylan is a main character in Conquest. Raised in the slums of Astfana, he lives a ghost of a childhood with poverty and his sister Zhanar as his closest companions. When the latter abandons him, he attempts to fill her absence with the guidance of religion. Granted a new chance at life in Deluria, he recedes into the vestiges of what once used to be a militant wing of the Order of Knights. His sister's influence having all but waned away completely, Korem sets out into the world armed with zeal and light. It is a world governed by the cloying law of men, and it has forgotten the wrath of God. Profile Appearance Personality Gaiden I: Lie Down Every dawn I lay me down The window on the fourth floor has been shattered for months. There is little hope for repair, and thus little resistance against the encroaching azure sky and nine-year old boy. With one arm he swings through the space in the glass, and with the other he shields his face: dark, dirty, yet somehow shining. The stinging sensation fades, gradually, but a remnant remains, as it always does. Though still partially blinded, Korem darts across the jagged floorboards and turns the corner without incident, entering a single, cramped, and mercifully darker room. It is home. Fold my hands and fold my eyes Whispers of light flit in through the cracks in the wooden door and a gap in the far wall, but the windowless apartment is overwhelmingly steeped in black. Silently, effortlessly, Korem weaves around the two blankets where his mother and sister are sleeping until he reaches his own. The band of cloth is waiting for him, yet even as Korem wraps it around his face, he knows it alone will not help. So he turns, as always, to prayer, until the stars in his eyes fade away. Every dawn I pray for time That morning was one of the worst, beginning with the flaring of a candle lancing through his scalp. The voice that followed did a little to ease the shock. "Sorry, sweets." It is an odd nickname that only his mother uses, possibly reflective of her son’s enjoyment of rice pudding, a luxury they can afford maybe once or twice a year. “It’s okay,” Korem mumbles, rolling himself up completely in the blanket and suppressing the desire to scream. Instead, he says a litany to the hurried cadence of his mother and sister preparing for the day’s work. Maybe one day it will be different... One more moment, one more night “Wool sorting today. We won’t be back until late.” Aruzahn kisses her son on the forehead as Zhanar extinguishes the candle. “Don’t get into too much trouble,” calls his sister as they move as quickly as they can out the door. Korem can hear them echo down the hall; each day more keenly than the last. “I swear, Zhanar, the nuns won’t be as forgiving as Korem when it comes to your mouth… and it is only getting worse! " The indulgent laugh in response is slightly warped, asymmetrical, and Korem can tell they are walking down the stairs. "If the convent can't handle my worst, then they're out of luck, 'cause I have no best!" For a brief second, even though the voices are receding into the wilderness, the sound is louder and more comforting, as they both are laughing. Even if it’s just with words Korem clutches a letter in his hands, the first contact with his sister since she left five months ago. He can read it just fine in the midnight gloom, perched atop a crumbling rooftop. The same is not true of the older, sandy-haired boy that stands sentinel with him - Rhis cannot read anyway, though he was eager to learn of the letter’s contents. “Hey, uh... did Zhanar talk about me at all? Like...uh… do you think… ugh, I’ll just say it. Do you think she liked me?" Korem hesitates. "Um... I asked her once, and she said no..." The wind whistles, Rhis grimaces, but Korem presses on: "When I asked why, she said..." He coughs nervously, then adopts his best impersonation of his sister: "Because I hate him." The other boy’s laughter is immediate and almost infectious. Korem manages a smile as Rhis cuffs him on the back. "You're all right, kid." You said we speak from the heart Despite his best efforts, Korem’s work is poorly written. He has been returning home earlier in an attempt to finish his letter in the silence of the apartment, made even quieter by Zhanar’s absence. Words do not come to him easily, and he enjoys the grace and intonation of the writing moreso than what is actually said. But paper and ink are precious, and leave no room for idle script. He drifts away into a half-sleep of fleeting dreams and phrases that will be uttered, only to be woken by his Aruzahn’s futilely cautious movements across the room. He does not open his eyes for fear of worrying her, but can tell, somehow, that she smiles sadly at him before she leaves for another grueling day. The letter is left unfinished, to dry and wither in the light. Korem ties three more loops of cloth around his eyes, lies down again, but it doesn’t feel right. His sister is gone for now, and he is already eleven, so he will have to start helping. It is only just... But the days pass, monochrome The work feels like moving through a sea of sweat and light, clinging to and stinging his eyes, his arms, everywhere. Shining black with perspiration, even the multiple bands of cloth wrapped around his face seem to conspire against him, cocooning him in the suffocating heat. He drops another pallet, the eighth of the day, and the jeers from his fellow workers have long since ceased their subtlety. It is a blessing that Rhis is there to help him. "Lay off, he's trying as hard as he can. Can't be said about you twitchin' lot. Come on, Korem, help me move this over here…” The light on his arms seems to tilt in the direction Rhis indicates, and with his help Korem places the shamble of wood in its proper spot. He does not have time to reflect on the phenomena. Two hundred more pallets await, all for three bronze marks. Memories are painted black Only one bronze mark each, it turned out. Rhis flips his coin to Korem at an awkward trajectory, but the brown-haired boy extends his arm with a snap and catches it with ease. “Are you sure, Rhis?” “Don’t worry about it, think of it as payback for the pomegranates your mom gave me. How’s she doing?” Korem searches for the best way to answer as they climb the facade of an abandoned storehouse. “She is... fine. I read Zhanar’s letters to her.” Rhis helps him onto the roof, whistling as he surveys the fruits of their labor. “God, that was twitchin’ hard. There’s gotta be a better way to live than this. You lucky you had your sister to teach you how to read! You can teach me, right? Maybe your mom, too? She’s a pretty cool lady, she’ll get the hang of it in no time. Me, on th’ other hand… Well, you know.” Korem nods. “I can teach you. And… things will change, in time.” Rhis is not looking at him, but at the whole of Isfana, taking all of its gray, grinding majesty. “Damn right,” he says. “They gotta change. We’ll make them change.” When the night falls silent A swath of blood across the cobblestones, and no relatives to mourn him. That was all Rhis had left in the world. That, and a blindfolded, brown-haired boy fighting the harsh light of day in the hope of some closure. The Stolen Breath man regards Korem with a harshness that contains the smallest trace of pity. It makes the feeling worse. “Can’t go robbing the wrong people, boy. Let this be a lesson to you.” There was no further explanation. Rhis had violated the law and had been dealt with… by the law. The soldier leaves, but Korem remains in the alleyway until the setting sun melds with the horizon. A black cloth drops to the dirt, a corner gently kissing the pool of red. He has to see it with his own eyes, and when he does, the sight brings him to his knees. In that empty hour “It isn’t right,” Korem whispers. He knows that no whisper, no prayer, can bring his friend back, but in the darkness of his room, the phrase is like a mantra. “Korem…” Aruzahn brushes the bangs out of her son’s eyes, which brim with tangles of light. “What they did was not right. What you did was… I know it meant a lot to you. But please… please don’t hurt yourself like this.” She does not know how liberated her son feels. “Okay, mom. I won’t.” He thinks of a church teaching she holds close to her heart: By yourself you can do nothing, possess nothing but weakness and misery. All the gifts of grace are from God. Korem feels so weak, so miserable, and so starkly alone. He cannot lean on his mother, not with how busy she is. She is even now taking the time to comfort him when she must be in the fields. “I trust you when you go out at night, but I don’t want to see you getting hurt,” she says, a silhouette in the doorway. “Especially now that… now that you don’t have Rhis. That’s all I ask, sweets.” I still hear you The final letter ends with a promise. There is no one to share it with atop the church spire, cloaked in night. Korem stares at the small pile of marks in his hand, wishing that he could bring his family together again with it. He could bring Rhis back, too… then Zhanar could needle at him, they could play their strange games, and everything would be as it once was. The thought, for an ephemeral moment comforting, soon makes him shudder. What could money really buy, in the world? A need for more money, more needs, an endless dissatisfaction. Yet he clings to the coins, because they are from his sister. He will give them to his mother; she will know how to give it away. He will find joy in poverty. In my head He hums each word of the Memorare in tempo with the clarrion, and together they greet the dawn. The light no longer stabs him with the same pain as it once did. With a power he cannot explain, he redirects the rays so that they merely scratch and break away from his face. He does not think his mother will understand, but perhaps Zhanar would. She taught him how to read, because she taught herself. Perhaps he could teach this to her, even though he did not really know what he was doing? She would know, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she…? But with just words, you’re too far There hasn’t been a letter in over a year. Korem slips through the ever-broken window, a trail of indelible light rippling in his wake. Today, he will not sleep. Aruzahn greets him at the door, her rough burlap bag pressing against him as they embrace. She is shorter than him, now. “Don’t get into too much trouble,” she laughs, but Korem can sense the faint worry in her voice as she departs. Eyes folded, he leaves as well, taking the window instead of the stairs. For some reason, he remembers that it was Zhanar that broke it, in the idyllic fury of one of their games. Korem rolls the splinters he tears from his fingers absentmindedly, like prayer beads, before discarding them. Yet they, like God, are inevitable. The pallet yard awaits. I can’t reach you with my heart “I told you, just give it up, kid,” squawks the postmistress. “You’re never going to get another letter.” This is the first time the normally kind woman has sounded so exasperated. It stings, but Korem does not show it. The other street rats have said as much, countless times, and he accepts their barbs in silence. Things change. He just had to put his faith in It that never did. Won’t you come alive again? “Korem, Korem! You will not believe - who I have seen!” His mother has not sounded so happy for a while, which makes Korem smile involuntarily. She throws the burlap sack unceremoniously to the side, dislodging a purple projectile, and buries her son in a hug. “We are going - we can - my cousin, Safura...” She is now openly weeping. “Who?” He asks, gently gathering up the bleeding pomegranate. “Thanks be to God,” exclaims Aruzahn. That is answer enough for Korem. Won’t you come back home to us? The window is still broken. Perhaps it always will be. Korem can see his reflection in it, through the cloth, as their cart begins the journey to Deluria. It is, like him, dusty, deficient, yet in the light of night a clear glass through which God could be seen. Even as Safura hurls profanities at the donkeys, as his mother speaks animatedly with her cousin’s husband, Korem feels almost completely at peace. And yet, there is the feeling that he is leaving something so much more than him behind, something fractured beyond repair... Won’t you come...? II: Floating on Waves III: A Gaze Alights "M-my name is Susana," stutters the mouse-haired girl to her block-faced detainer, an unassuming man made terrifying by the cloak of night. He pulls her roughly along a narrow alleyway fraught with shadows. "The only people who cared aren't going to ever see you again. You are one of many prices your father must pay for his default. Accept that you are a slave, and your life will be easier." The man's crisp navy blue uniform suggests an aura of order and respect, but to Susana, he is only the man that wrenched her away from her family. "We're not slaves. That isn't fair! My father doesn't deserve to go to jail! He -" The girl's outburst is interrupted by a harsh slap to the face. There is a tiny, lingering sense of discomfort in the face of the appropriator, but then he remembers that the Endless Successors do not deal well with failure. "Keep silent. Your father has nothing else of worth. At the very least, he is fortunate that the clan accepts you as partial reparation. There is far worse that could be wrought." "I can pay!" the girl, exclaims, grubbing in the recesses of her faded tunic for a tiny coinpurse. The man swipes it from her in an instant, scoffs upon uncovering its contents, and pockets it, treating Susana with another glare. She is no more than 9, but Susana is wise enough to take the hint. Her hand hurts from the grasp of her captor, and her face stings from his strike. The streets of the Delurian shantytowns lie almost completely abandoned, and the few vagrants awake know better than to tangle with a henchman of the Endless Successors. The River Juasyl, green and laconic, appears before them, one of many tendrils that feeds the great Rhana Strait. With an impatient tug, the detainer leads Susana towards a ramshackle wooden bridge, bereft of any artificial lighting to assist would-be pedestrians. Only the crescent moons, suspended in a sea of black, guide their path. "Hurry up. I haven't got all night to get to the underground." grumbles the man. Then why did you take me from my family at 3 in the morning? thinks Susana. She sniffles haltingly - there were tears as her father called out between bars from the receding wagon, but in the last ten minutes she has learned her companion did not appreciate crying. Ancient and tired wooden planks release a septet of sighs as the officer takes his first steps onto the bridge. Susana hesitates: Juasyl, of meager width and shallow depths, seems so familiar and calm during the day. In the dead of night, with an abusive stranger, it seems the very void itself. Ultima, protect me. Ultima, protect me. Ultima... A sudden rush of wind, of sound. "What did you say?!" barks her captor, and Susana can see the fear in his eyes. The bridge lists almost gracefully in a querying creak, as if straining to hear a phantom. "N-nothing," whispers Susana, though she wants with every fiber of her being to utter the prayers aloud, in the hope that someone, anyone, might - The officer's arm explodes in a shower of blood as an arc of light swerves across the bridge. Both open their mouths in shock - Susana lets out a scream and falls, but the officer cannot manage a sound as he stares incredulously at his ruined shoulder. He spins around, away from the freed child, to see a half a skull rushing at him at blinding speed, in blinding light... then nothing. ---- There is a loud splash as the Juasyl accepts its tribute, and when the girl opens her eyes again, someone else stands before her, more specter than man. Two brilliant arcs revolve slowly around his figure, clad in dark, green and red leather save the face - and quite a face it is. A horned mask of bone and wood, shielding the eyes but revealing the mouth, separates Susana from her rescuer, but she knows not whether to feel relieved or alarmed. Korem Taylan waves his right hand, not in greeting, but to dismiss the moonbeam folds. Without a word, he crouches next to Susana and holds out the other hand, in which lies a small, grey object. "T-thank you," mumbles the girl as she retrieves her coinpurse with the same rapidity in which it was taken from her. "Who are you?" "A friend," responds Korem, withdrawing his hand. Susana looks around, but no one else is there - the river flows peacefully, satiated. He makes no further movements, but remains fixated upon her through those terrible, obscured eyeholes, waiting for her to make the next move. Everything - the pain, the tears, the hope - floods out all at once. "Please, you have to help me, the police took away my father but it's not our fault and -" "I know," Korem replies. "I saw. I can help you." "Help my dad, too!" Susana demands. "Do your magic thing again, there's a police wagon that took him away, if you run fast you can save him!" "Your father cannot be saved yet. All things, in time." It does not seem like a very good answer to Susana. "I will take you someplace safe," Korem says with quiet confidence. The girl stares at him, then at the soft, peaceful waters below. "Are you going to take me back to my house?" the girl questions. The mask shakes from side to side, almost imperceptibly. "I cannot. They would only take you away again. We are going to a monastery." "...Oh." Her lip trembles for a moment, and a single tear wrenches free, diving silently towards the River Juasyl. Even in the waning light of the twin moons, they can see it shatter into a thousand ripples. "Okay," she says, voice cracking. "But only because my dad says that I can always trust nuns. You don't look like a nun, though." "...Your father has taught you well." The masked man rises and offers a hand to the girl, who clambers onto his back, cushioned by the strange mane flowing from the back of his mask. They make their way down the gentle curve of the bridge, but instead of following the path, Korem veers towards the river, against its southern flow, and upon reaching its bank, breaks into a dash. The girl shrieks in a mixture of surprise and excitement, the wind tousling her short brown hair into a billowing fan behind her. "Quiet. We cannot be seen, or heard." Susana notices that the man barely makes a sound despite his gait, his black cloth shoes obscuring each footfall. "Will I get to see my dad again?" she whispers, clinging on to the mane like a talisman. Korem passes another bridge as Deluria proper begins to recede in the background. "I don't know. Sometimes the people we love don't come back. For us, or at all." Now it is Susana's turn to not respond. She refuses to consider the worst, and yet... this man gives her such a terrible, contradictory sense of peace. As a distraction, she cranes her neck to catch a fleeting glimpse of a copse of birds-of-paradise, yellow and red fans spiking towards heaven. She has never been this far out of the city, and in the mystery of the night realizes she might not ever return. Another tear is lost in the brilliant weave of the mane. Many minutes later, Deluria in the distance, the Juasyl ascends a cliff in the form of a modest waterfall. The sight of it somehow gives the girl the voice to speak again. "My name is Susana," she offers once more. Instead of a sneer, she receives a nod, and nothing more. "Don't you want to tell me yours?" she huffs, in a display of impatience she would not have dared to utter an hour earlier. "No," says Korem. "Hold on. Don't let go." A curve of light appears around them, revolving quickly and then sweeping underneath Korem's feet just as he pushes off the ground. The momentum lifts the pair into the sky, barely clearing the outcrop. Susana lets out a laugh, thoughts of her father still in her mind. The masked man can climb waterfalls. Of course he can bring my dad back. We can live with the nuns and they will not care about money, and we can be happy. "Will I have to stay in the church forever?" Susana asks. "I don't want to be a sister. All the sisters I know are old and ugly, and I want to be young and beautiful." "You can be whoever you want, if it is just in the eyes of God." replies Korem. He picks up his pace as the first crack of twilight splits the obsidian sky. The land here is slightly more parched, the birds of paradise more rare. "Another thing. You will have to change your name, in case people recognize it. You can't be Susana." "But I like Susana," the girl pouts, though she is no match for the stone face. "Fine. But it has to be beautiful. What do you think it should be?" Beneath the mask, Korem's face twists in a display of incomprehension. "Anything except Susana," he replies. "How about... Zharina? It's the florist's name, and it's pretty. Don't you think so?" The silence she receives is longer than usual, though she dares not fill it. "That works," comes the eventual whisper. For a while afterwards, there is no sound besides the gentle rush of the river, and then not even that as Korem swerves to the west, towards a lonely building nestled among gently rolling hills. "If you won't tell me your name," the newly christened Zharina announces, "I get to call you goat-man. It's only fair." Her victim nods slightly. Though he moves rapidly and with a strange, silent grace, there is something that the young girl finds heavy about him. "We are here," he announces. A single spire and warm earthen bricks welcome them to St. Dinova's Monastery, of the Order of Communion. It lacks a gate, and the pair pass under an arch on the way to a proud and ancient wooden door, flanked by spider plants. Korem lets Zharina down; she is mildly disappointed to give up the comfort of the mane. "Don't be scared. There are others like you here, and the nuns will know how to help you. But you must not tell anyone your real name. Go on, knock on the door." Zharina leaves him just in front of the arch, with nothing but the clothing on her back and her coinpurse. Yet she feels she is leaving him behind and not the other way around. Before knocking, she pauses to ask the man standing in the moonlight one last question. "Goat-man? Why do you do this?" What can he say? The mantra rises within him, irresistible, inexorable... The human heart longs for true freedom, the freedom offered by God. All too often when seeking freedom, one gives himself over to a false law, a false master. If the law of man clashes with the law of heaven, then it is no law, but farce. All thoughts, words, and actions, everything suffered, must lead to God. Go then as the arm of God, in charity and justice, but above all, in faith. "God wills it," he says simply. She takes him for his word. "Thank you." With a determined, dirty hand, she raps smartly on the oaken door. It yields a young and kind-faced nun in ashen habits rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Yes...? Oh, you are another..." "The goat-man brought me here," claims Zharina, and the nun's face softens into a mix of amusement and exasperation. "Goat-man? That's a new one." "It matches," says the young girl proudly, turning back around. "See, he has horns, like..." But she and the nun are the only two figures to be seen. The moons have faded into the break of day.